Ragan AI Advisor | AI Narrative Architect for Media & Entertainment| AI Storytelling Strategist I AI Trust, Risk & Crisis Communications

AI Storytelling Strategist | Helping Studios Innovate Without Alienating Talent

Hollywood is caught between two forces: the competitive pressure to adopt AI, and the creative community's fear of being replaced by it. I help studios navigate both.

The Problem:

The Creators Coalition—Del Toro, Affleck, Portman, and hundreds more—just launched demanding "guardrails" before AI adoption. Meanwhile, Disney committed $1B to OpenAI. Netflix is acquiring studios. The pressure to innovate is real. So is the risk of getting it wrong.

Studios need someone who can translate AI capability into coalition-compliant strategy. Someone who understands both the technology AND why creative talent is terrified.

That's where I come in.

What I Do:

I help entertainment studios develop AI storytelling strategies that satisfy competitive pressure without triggering talent backlash. I design "human-in-the-loop" creative workflows, draft consent-based AI policies, and create frameworks that preserve storytelling's "human core" while leveraging AI efficiency.

My clients move fast—without breaking what matters.

My Background:
I've spent years advising organizations on AI strategy, from federal agencies to enterprises. But unlike most AI consultants, I'm also a storyteller—currently producing an animated feature film. I understand both AI's promise and the threat of "industrialized creativity."

Why Now:

The Coalition launched with four non-negotiable pillars: consent, compensation, job protection, and safeguarding human creativity. Every studio must decide how to respond. Ignore them and risk talent revolt? Freeze AI adoption and lose competitive advantage?

Or find the third path—where AI enhances creative teams rather than threatens them.

How I Help:

AI Storytelling Strategy Briefings for studio leadership
Coalition-compliant workflow design
Talent partnership protocols that satisfy guild concerns
Risk assessment for current AI initiatives

Let's Connect If:

You're leading AI strategy at a studio and feel caught between tech promises and creative concerns. You're figuring out how to respond to the Coalition. You need someone who translates between engineers and screenwriters.

In Hollywood, reputation is currency you can't afford to lose. 

Let's build your AI strategy the right way.

Plot twist of the week: OpenAI just stepped in to replace Anthropic at the Pentagon.

With the exact same red lines Anthropic got blacklisted for.

Sam Altman told his staff at an all-hands that the Pentagon is willing to let OpenAI build its own "safety stack".

That is functionally identical to what Anthropic asked for.

This week just established something that will reshape AI vendor contracts across every industry:

✅ AI companies CAN hold red lines — and still get the deal 

✅ The precedent being set here will filter into every enterprise AI contract negotiation 

✅ Your AI vendor's terms of service just became a boardroom conversation, not an IT checkbox

For studios and production companies navigating AI adoption, the question this week raises is one you need to answer internally before a client or a union asks it for you:

What are YOUR red lines for AI use? 

And are they in writing?

The companies that answer that question proactively won't end up in a Friday afternoon standoff with a 5:01 PM deadline.

This story isn't over. 

But the lesson already is.

NOTE: "No CEOs were harmed in the making of this meme 😂 But the irony is real."

#OpenAI #Anthropic #AIGovernance

Meiko S. Patton

Warner Bros. Discovery employees wanted Netflix. 

They got Paramount Pictures. 

And now the real drama begins.

The $111 billion deal that just reshaped Hollywood wasn't just a financial transaction.

It was a human story playing out in real time across studio lots, newsrooms, and Slack channels.

CNBC spoke to 10 WBD employees. 

All 10 expressed fear. 

Not one was celebrating.

Most WBD employees preferred the Netflix deal. 

Netflix had less overlap, promised to leave HBO Max independent, and Ted Sarandos personally visited the lot to address staff. 

Paramount has already signaled $6 billion in cost cuts by eliminating "duplicative operations." 

That's not corporate language, that's a layoff announcement in a suit.

What this means for anyone working in entertainment right now:

✅ The consolidation wave is not over, it's accelerating 

✅ Talent, union, and coalition strategy just became more critical than ever

 ✅ Studios adopting AI tools mid-merger will face compounded workforce anxiety, the trust deficit just got real 

✅ Any content team inside WBD or Paramount needs a clear internal communications strategy yesterday

This is exactly the moment where how leadership communicates with talent will define whether the merger succeeds or implodes from the inside.

The shareholders got their $31 a share. 

The employees got uncertainty.

How leadership handles the next 6-12 months of integration will be the real story.

#WarnerBros #Paramount #MediaMerger #EntertainmentIndustry

Netflix just walked away from Warner Bros. Discovery. 

The WBD board declared Paramount Skydance's all-cash offer "superior" to Netflix's bid, and Netflix declined to raise its price — saying the deal was always a "nice to have at the right price, not a must have at any price."

Netflix just told the world it will not overpay for legacy assets. 

Paramount's $111 billion all-cash bid for the entirety of WBD includes backing from the Ellison family, Redbird Capital, and sovereign wealth funds from three Middle Eastern countries. 

When two massive studios are mid-merger, AI strategy doesn't pause. 

Talent anxiety doesn't pause. 

The pressure to cut costs, consolidate workflows, and "do more with less" actually accelerates.

I've seen what happens when studios rush AI adoption during organizational chaos. 

Coalition opposition. 

Talent walkouts. 

Brand damage that outlasts the merger headlines.

Netflix walked because the price made it unattractive. 

But here's what I keep coming back to: both companies are sitting on IP empires in a world where AI is about to fundamentally change what content production costs. 

If you're navigating AI strategy inside a studio going through consolidation, acquisition, or leadership transition, let's talk. 

#EntertainmentIndustry #WBD #Netflix #ParamountSkydance #CreativeAI #StudioLeadership #AIStrategy #TalentRelations

Meiko Patton

Disney didn't give Dana Walden the CEO title. 

They gave her $27 million and a new one. 😭💰

After naming Josh D'Amaro as its next CEO, Disney Entertainment moved quickly to make sure Walden, the executive many believed could just as easily have won the job did not become Hollywood's most valuable free agent.

The result: a base salary of $3.75 million — roughly 50% higher than her new boss — plus a $5.26 million one-time stock grant and annual target compensation of about $27 million.

She didn't get the top job. 

She got a retention bonus and a brand new title: President & Chief Creative Officer — the FIRST person in Disney's 102-year history to hold it.

When you lose the promotion but keep the bag. 😭

But here's what this story is really about: institutional knowledge is irreplaceable.

Disney is still haunted by the 1994 departure of Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left after losing a succession fight and went on to co-found DreamWorks, taking talent and momentum with him.

Disney paid $27M because Walden's judgment, relationships, and creative leadership can't be replicated overnight.

The same is true in your communications team.

That senior PR director who knows exactly how to handle a media crisis at 11pm? 

The VP who knows which journalist to call and what not to say? 

That institutional knowledge walks out the door when they do.

AI PR Skills are how you protect that knowledge before it leaves.

You document it. You install it. 

You make it available to every team member, not just the one making $27M.

No retention bonus required. 🙂
🔗 AIPRSkills.com
#DisneyLeadership #SkillsOnTheRise

AI fluency is now a promotion requirement. 

Not a "nice to have."

Accenture just made it official: Senior managers and associate directors must demonstrate "regular adoption" of AI tools to be considered for leadership promotions.

This isn't speculative—it's happening now at one of the world's largest consultancies (780,000 employees).

What this signals:
→ AI literacy is becoming table stakes for advancement 

→ "Use it or lose it" is the new reality 

→ Scale is staggering — 550,000 workers already reskilled on generative AI

The uncomfortable truth: 

This won't stay confined to consulting.

When a firm that advises the world's largest companies on digital transformation makes AI adoption a visible input to talent discussions, they're modeling what their clients will likely follow.

For leaders: The window for "getting around to AI" is closing. 

The expectation is shifting from awareness to demonstrated application.

For organizations: If you're not explicitly connecting AI adoption to career progression yet, get started.

But here's what most miss about "AI adoption":

It's not about better prompts. 

It's about embedding professional judgment into structured workflows.

I've been working with communications teams on exactly this. 

The problem? 

Most AI use is bottom-up and unstructured. 

Teams experiment with Copilot without oversight, creating inconsistent approaches that multiply risk. 

When everyone prompts differently, tone shifts unpredictably.

The mismatch: Prompts are isolated, one-off questions. 

PR is sequenced, multi-step, and risk-aware.

The solution? 

AI skills are structured workflows that encode best practices into repeatable processes. 

Crisis response, media pitching, executive talking points—all with embedded judgment that flags risks automatically.

The outcome: Every team member produces senior-level work. 

Judgment scales. 

Speed doesn't cost you risk.

Accenture is betting its leadership pipeline on AI fluency. 

The question for communications leaders: 

Are you building AI skills that reinforce your professional judgment, or just hoping your team figures it out?

For the past year, communications teams have been flooded with advice on how to use generative AI: better prompts, clever hacks, and faster ways to dr

Open article: Why PR Comms Teams Don't Need "Better Prompts" - They Need AI "Skills" by Meiko S. Patton • 5 min read

Why PR Comms Teams Don't Need "Better Prompts" - They Need AI "Skills"

Netflix just acquired Ben Affleck's AI company

And the way it was built actually matters.

InterPositive wasn't scraped from the internet. 

No text-to-video prompts. 

The visual training data was created by human actors on a secure soundstage. 

Affleck said he started the company because he kept seeing tech firms trying to "get the human out of it" and decided to build the opposite.

That's a different kind of AI story.

When AI is designed with creatives instead of around them, something shifts. 

It stops being a threat and starts being a tool that actually serves the work. 

Directors keep their eye. 

Writers keep their voice. 

The craft stays intact.

This is the version of AI adoption I talk about every day.

I work with entertainment studios and streaming platforms helping them integrate AI in ways that don't alienate the creative communities they depend on. 

Not because it's the nice thing to do, because it's the smart business/ human move. 

The studios that build that trust now won't be managing a crisis later.

Netflix just made a huge bet that human judgment is worth protecting. 

That bet is also a ridiculously great business strategy.

If your organization is figuring out how to make that same bet...

📩 DM me or visit Meiko.AI

🔗 Full story in comments.
#AIStrategy #Entertainment #CreativeEconomy #Netflix #HumanFirst

BlackRock Bets $100M That Human Labor Is the Real AI Bottleneck

While the tech world debates which foundation model will win, BlackRock just made a $100 million bet on something more fundamental: people.

The asset management giant launched its Future Builders initiative today, a philanthropic effort to train 50,000 Americans in skilled trades over the next five years. 

The trades in question? 

Electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, ironworkers. 

The workers who physically build the infrastructure that AI runs on.

Chairman Larry Fink's framing was direct: capital isn’t enough. 

You need people to actually build the thing.

Why should studio and streaming executives care?

Because the infrastructure story isn’t just about data centers in the desert. 

It’s about:

• Smart stages that require technical operators who understand both production and AI systems

• Post-production pipelines that need workers who can bridge creative and machine workflows

• Facility upgrades across every major lot that will require a new class of technically skilled labor

The talent gap is coming for entertainment and most studios don’t have a workforce development strategy that accounts for it.

The bigger signal:

When the world’s largest asset manager starts funding workforce pipelines, it’s not charity. 

It’s infrastructure planning. 

They’re protecting their infrastructure investments by ensuring there are workers to run them.

The question for every creative organization right now: 

Are you planning your AI adoption around the tools only or around the full talent ecosystem those tools require?

That’s the conversation I’m having with studios this quarter. If your team isn’t asking it yet, now is the time.

Creative AI Consultant | Meiko.AI

Amanda Silberling at TechCrunch just called Tilly Norwood's AI-generated song the worst she's ever heard. 

And she's right, not because AI was involved, but because no human was really IN it.

The song is AI talking to AI, about AI. 

Literally no person on earth can relate to it.

This is what happens when the tool becomes the creator.

I've spent 30 years in communications. 

When I wrote the WUTOMINOMB Anthem, it was born from a real moment of being dismissed, overlooked, underestimated — I used AI as a collaborator, not a substitute. 

The emotion was mine. 

The story was mine. 

The scar that made the song was mine.

That's the difference.

Tilly's song is a demo of technology looking for a reason to exist. 

The WUTOMINOMB Anthem is a human story that happened to use new tools to come alive.

Studios and execs watching the Tilly Norwood backlash, this is the line. 

Not AI vs. no AI., rather

Human authorship vs. the absence of it.

The audience can feel the difference. 

P.S. — Tilly, if you're reading this... you don't need a rally cry for AI actors. 

You need the WUTOMINOMB Anthem.

What U Think Of Me Is None Of My Business.

The whole internet just told you what they think of your song.

If you truly don't care? 

THAT'S the energy.

THAT'S the anthem. 

It's already written. 

You're welcome. 🐑

🎵 Listen to the Black Sheep WUTOMINOMB Anthem: 

https://lnkd.in/gQgBvCy2

📖 Full piece by Amanda Silberling in comments

#WUTOMINOMB #AIinEntertainment #CreativeAI #MusicIndustry

I've been saying this for a while now:

AI fear is not a soft problem.

Fortune is reporting today that over $265 billion in market cap was wiped from the biggest names in private equity — Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Ares, Blue Owl — not because of bad loans or a market crash.

Because retail investors got scared that AI would destroy the software companies their money was sitting in.

Months ago, JPMorganChase Chairman & CEO Jamie Dimon warned about "cockroaches" — the idea that when you spot one sign of trouble, more are hiding nearby. 

He was right. 

The fear moved faster than the facts. 

And the gates went up.

This is the pattern I watch closely in entertainment and media. 

When organizations don't give people a real, honest narrative about what AI means for their work, the anxiety fills the vacuum. 

And anxious people make reactive decisions.

In studios, that looks like coalition opposition, talent walkouts, and productions that stall before they start.

On Wall Street, apparently, it looks like a $265 billion meltdown.

The solution in both cases is the same: clear communication, a credible adoption strategy, and leadership willing to hold the room.

That's not a luxury anymore.

 It's risk management.

📖 Link to the Fortune article in comments.

#AIStrategy #HollywoodAI #CreativeIndustry #AIAdoption

AI Identity Reconstruction Strategist | AI Narrative Architect for Media & Entertainment | Ragan AI Advisor | Founder, WUTOMINOMB Studios

📦 "Your package has been delivered." — Amazon to OpenAI

OpenAI just closed a $110 billion funding round...the largest private capital raise in history. 

Amazon dropped $50 billion. 

Nvidia and SoftBank each threw in $30 billion. 

And more investors are reportedly still waiting to get in.

To put that in context: all of U.S. venture capital invested a combined $170 billion into startups in all of 2023.

This isn't just a funding story. 

It's an infrastructure war.

Amazon gets exclusive third-party cloud distribution for OpenAI Frontier (their enterprise agent platform). 

AWS expands its existing partnership by $100 billion over 8 years. 

OpenAI's valuation jumps to $730–840 billion depending on the source you read.

And here's what nobody in entertainment is saying loudly enough yet:

OpenAI is specifically building customized models to power Amazon's consumer-facing products. 

Amazon is a streaming giant. 

A content platform. 

A storytelling engine.

This means the infrastructure of AI-powered content creation just got a $110 billion injection. 

And where is it pointed?

Directly at the kinds of workflows your production teams, writers rooms, and marketing departments use every day.

The studios asking "should we wait and see" are about to find themselves waiting and being hit by this wave.

The time to build a strategy is before the delivery van pulls up.

🔗 Full story: https://lnkd.in/gkzbvxwU

What's your read on how this changes the competitive dynamics between OpenAI and Anthropic in the enterprise space?

🎸 Suno just hit 2 million paid subscribers and $300M in annual recurring revenue.

Three months ago they announced $200M ARR. 

That's not a startup finding product-market fit. 

That's a platform in full acceleration.

It's reshaping the conversation studios, labels, and content teams need to be having right now.

Here's what the Suno story is really about for the entertainment industry:

The barrier to music creation just collapsed.

A 31-year-old in Mississippi typed her poetry into Suno, generated a viral R&B track, and walked away with a $3M record deal. 

That's a huge signal.

The legal landscape is shifting too. 

Warner Music Group went from suing Suno to signing a deal with them,  licensing their catalog so Suno can build better models. 

The pivot from "stop this" to "let's structure this" is the move every major rights holder is going to have to make.

What this means for content teams and studios:

✅ AI-generated music is no longer a fringe experiment, it's a subscriber-backed business at scale

 ✅ The question is not "will AI disrupt music?",  it's "how do we build workflows around it?" 

✅ Talent relations, licensing strategy, and content pipelines all need to account for this now

The musicians pushing back aren't wrong to raise concerns. 

But the $300M number tells you the train has left the station.

The studios and production teams who figure out how to work with these tools, ethically, strategically, and in compliance with talent agreements will be the ones setting the pace.

The new rockstars aren't just on stage. 

Some of them are now on their computers.

Does Suno's growth change how your team thinks about music licensing and original content production?

#AIMusic #Suno #EntertainmentAI #ContentStrategy #MusicIndustry

$100 million in new revenue.

In 30 days.

With 146 employees.

Lovable just crossed $400M ARR and that revenue-per-employee ratio ($2.77M per person) isn't just impressive. 

It's a data point that should make every studio executive, media company, and creative organization stop and pay attention.

Gartner predicted companies would hit $2M ARR per employee by 2030.

Lovable is already there. 

In 2026.

Congratulations to Anton Osika and the entire Lovable team on this milestone.

What this tells me, as someone who works with studios and media companies navigating AI adoption, is that the new competitive moat is how intelligently you deploy AI at every layer of your operation.

The companies that figure that out first won't just grow faster. 

They'll define the next decade.

True WUTOMINOMB energy. (What U Think of Me is None of My Business)

Take a listen: 
https://lnkd.in/gQgBvCy2

#AIStrategy #Lovable #VibeCoding #CreativeAI

Luma just launched AI agents that handle the full creative pipeline from text, images, video, and audio, all from initial brief to final delivery.

And they didn't launch it at a tech conference.

They launched it at an event where one of the featured speakers was a film director who used AI to produce a Biblical drama streaming on Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios.

Read that twice.

The line between "AI tools for tech companies" and "AI tools for storytellers" has officially been erased.

This is exactly what I've been telling studios, agencies, and media companies: the question is no longer IF you integrate AI into your creative workflow. 

The question is whether you do it intentionally, with governance, with strategy, and with your talent alongside you or whether you wake up one day and realize your competitors already did.

Luma Agents aren't shortcuts. 

They're a new kind of collaborator. 

And the creative teams that figure out how to direct them well? 

They're going to move at a speed that's genuinely hard to compete with.

What's your studio's plan?

Congrats Luma. True WUTOMINOMB energy. Take a listen:

https://lnkd.in/gQgBvCy2

#LumaAI #AIAgents #CreativeAI #EntertainmentIndustry #AIStrategy #AIAdoption #FilmProduction

OpenAI's Power Move: What the Hiring of Instagram's Celebrity Whisperer Tells Us About the Future of AI in Entertainment

The lines between Silicon Valley and Hollywood just got even blurrier.

OpenAI just made a headline-grabbing hire that signals something big: Charles Porch, Meta and Instagram's veteran celebrity partnerships executive, is joining the AI giant as VP of Global Creative Partnerships. 

After 15 years at Instagram where he served as the platform's chief liaison to the creative community, Porch is now tasked with bridging the gap between artificial intelligence and the entertainment world.

If you don't know Charles Porch by name, you've certainly seen his work. He's the behind-the-scenes architect who helped Beyoncé launch an album exclusively on social media.

He's spent over a decade convincing A-listers, creators, and cultural icons that new technology isn't something to fear.

His rolodex reads like a Met Gala guest list.

In the influence economy, relationships like these are currency gold.

This hire isn't happening in a vacuum. 

OpenAI has been making aggressive moves into the entertainment space:

They recently struck a deal with Disney to bring hundreds of beloved characters to their platform

After last year's Sora rollout faced backlash from creatives concerned about AI replacing human artists, the company clearly recognizes it needs allies in Hollywood.

The creator economy, worth an estimated $250 billion globally represents both a massive opportunity and a potential minefield for AI companies.

Porch himself put it best in his announcement post: "My entire career has been dedicated to threading the needle between culture and tech, and the intersection of AI and culture is the next chapter in this journey."

OpenAI is building relationships. 

They understand that for AI to truly transform entertainment, they need creators not just as users, but as partners, advocates, and co-creators.

This approach marks a shift in how tech companies engage with the creative brass. 

Rather than building in isolation and hoping adoption follows, OpenAI is bringing in someone who speaks both languages fluently.

Will this hire help OpenAI navigate the ongoing tensions with artists and writers who view AI as a threat to their livelihoods?

Can the same playbook that worked for social media platforms translate to an AI context?

Time will tell.

The AI wars aren't just being fought in research labs and data centers. 

They're being fought in writers' rooms, recording studios, and creative agencies. 

For studio execs watching this space, the message is clear: the companies that succeed will be the ones that build with you.

#OpenAI #ArtificialIntelligence #EntertainmentIndustry #CreatorEconomy #TechNews #Hollywood

LinkedIn just dropped its 2026 #SkillsOnTheRise list — and communications professionals should pay close attention.

Two categories jumped out at me immediately:
→ AI business strategy (including responsible AI and data governance) 
→ Executive and stakeholder communications

Both. On the same list. In the same year.

That's not a coincidence. That's a signal.

The organizations winning right now aren't just using AI — they're using it consistently. 

And consistency in communications isn't a writing problem. 

It's a workflow problem.

Here's what I see PR and comms teams getting wrong: they treat AI like a search engine. 

Ask a question. Get a draft. Start over tomorrow.

That's not a skill. That's improvisation.

A real AI skill tells Microsoft Copilot (or Claude or ChatGPT) how to behave inside your workflow — not just what to write. 

It encodes your judgment, your escalation logic, your tone standards, so a junior team member at 10pm responds the same way your VP would at 9am.

That's what LinkedIn's data is actually pointing to: the professionals getting hired and promoted aren't just "AI-curious." 

They're the ones who've figured out how to operationalize AI inside real organizational processes.

I built the AI PR Skills Pack for exactly this moment — 7 installable skills for crisis response, media pitching, executive talking points, internal alignment, and more. 

Optimized for Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT. 

No new software. No IT. Copy, paste, done.

If your team is still prompting from scratch every time, please stop now!
🔗 [AI PR Skills Pack → AIPRSkills.com]

#SkillsOnTheRise #AIinPR

You don't need a PR agency. You need a PR engine.

A PR agency costs $10K–$30K a month and still needs you to brief them, approve the work, and catch the tone misses.

A PR engine runs inside your team. 

It knows your voice. 

It follows your process. 

It doesn't sleep, panic, or start from scratch every crisis.

That's what AI PR Skills build — structured workflows installed directly into Microsoft Copilot, Claude, or ChatGPT so your team responds with the same judgment and quality every single time.

No retainer. No onboarding. No waiting.

Just a system that works.

The future of communications is about who built the better engine.
🔗 AIPRSkills.com
#AIinPR #SkillsOnTheRise

The algorithm crowned short-form video. 

Live-streaming just staged a coup.

A new ADWEEK piece is making the rounds...and it's one every studio exec and content strategist should read.

The thesis: live-streaming has broken containment. 

What was once a niche corner of the internet dominated by gamers is now minting mainstream stars faster than TikTok did at its peak.

And the reason why? 

Audiences are starving for content they can trust.

In a feed flooded with AI-generated everything, the raw, unpolished, real-time nature of live video is the antidote. 

No filters. 

No retakes. 

No wondering if what you're watching is even real.

Here's what jumped out at me from an AI + storytelling standpoint:

The article frames live-streaming as a refuge from AI content and it's right. 

But that's not a threat to creators who understand AI. 

It's a roadmap.

The studios and creators who win won't be the ones replacing human presence with AI. 

They'll be the ones using AI to build the content supply chain around live moments like the clips, the newsletters, the transcripts, the social posts so the human at the center can just show up and be real.

That's the pipeline: one live moment → five monetized touchpoints.

AI handles the downstream. 

Humans own the upstream.

This is exactly the conversation I'm having with production teams right now. 

The talent isn't threatened by AI when AI is positioned correctly only as infrastructure, not imitation.

If your studio is still debating whether to integrate AI into your content workflows, the market just gave you a very loud answer.

🔗 Full Adweek piece in the comments.

#AIStrategy #ContentCreation #LiveStreaming #EntertainmentIndustry

The narrative is being written with or without you...

By Meiko S. Patton | Meiko.AI Most studios are getting AI adoption completely backwards. They're doing what comes naturally to organizations with mone

Open article: The Smartest Way Studios Are Adopting AI Without Alienating Their Talent by Meiko S. Patton • 5 min read

The Smartest Way Studios Are Adopting AI Without Alienating Their Talent

💙 To the 4,000 people who got the news from Block yesterday.

This post is for you.

Jack Dorsey didn't mince words. 

He said most companies will reach the same conclusion within a year and make similar structural changes. 

That's cold comfort when you're the one holding a severance letter.

But here's what I want you to hear:

Your skills didn't become obsolete.

The org chart did.

If you worked at Square, Cash App, Afterpay, or Tidal, you were building products used by millions. 

You understand payments infrastructure, consumer behavior at scale, fintech compliance, product operations, and digital content ecosystems. 

That combination is exactly what entertainment studios, streaming platforms, and media companies are scrambling to hire for right now.

Now let's talk about that severance.

20 weeks of salary. 

Plus 1 week per year of tenure. 

Equity vested through May. 

6 months of health care. 

$5,000 transition fund.

Some of you are going to spend that time grieving a job (and that's ok, but don't stay there too long)

My advice: Treat it like pre-seed funding. 

That runway is enough to get certified, retool, reposition, and walk into your next chapter with intention.

The AI industry isn't slowing down, it needs people who've shipped real products at scale. 

That's you.

A few practical moves if you were affected:

✅ Update your LinkedIn headline today and lead with outcomes, not your old title 

✅ Reframe your Block experience around AI-adjacent skills you used, even informally 

✅ Don't let anyone tell you this was about your performance. 

Dorsey himself said the business is strong and gross profit continues to grow. 

This was not a performance review.

You built real things. 

That doesn't disappear.

Now go fund your next chapter. 💙

#BlockLayoffs

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